


Rainbow Bridge

by qwanderer



Series: Midnight Mystery [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Jotunn!Loki, Loki talks to Heimdall, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 16:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Heimdall and Loki finally confront each other about what lies between them, and Loki uses Midgardian science to help rebuild what was thought to be unsalvageable.</p>
<p>Takes place during Chapter 9 of Better Mischief Through Science.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainbow Bridge

Perhaps it had something to do with the way Tony was always muttering aloud and addressing his thoughts to Jarvis, but Loki had recently found himself thinking aloud, wondering if Heimdall was listening, and speaking as if he was.

At first it was rather hostile, as Loki was still coming to terms with his feelings about Heimdall and his betrayal in leaving his post on the Bifrost. Also he hated not being able to hide, and although he had recently had a lot of practice with the cloaking spell he had used to hide his Midnight Mystery identity and movements from Thanos, it just wasn't worth it to spend that energy every waking moment now that Thanos was no longer a threat.

He would stub his toe and swear, and then, "Damn you, Heimdall, I know you're watching and I want you to know that I hate you for it."

He would eat strawberry ice cream, and he would say, "Oh. There's nothing like this on Asgard. It tastes like sunrise across Valhalla. It's too bad you can't taste at a distance, eh, Heimdall?" And he stuck out his tongue in the vague direction of the sky.

Sometimes when he was in a bad mood he did it just to be annoying. Loki knew that every time someone said the Áss's name he would look away from whatever he was doing to listen. 

"Heimdall...Heimdall...Heimdall...Heimdall...." One dreadful day when Loki could not get his spell to align properly and Tony had taken to calling him Cookie Monster again, he turned it into a sort of chant, almost a song.

Once, Tony and Loki got drunk out on the balcony and got into a complaining match about their families again. Once they were done with their fathers, Tony started in on Obie, muttering something about "the keys to the kingdom, my dad trusted him, relied on him but I never should have. Bastard knew everything and he never told me."

"Tell me about it," Loki slurred. "Heimdall, did you know what I was? Did you know all that time? Is that why you hated me? Why you always expected the worst of me? Did you know what Odin brought back from Jotunheim? Why didn't you ever tell me what a monster I was, so I could throw myself off the Bifrost _before_ I caused so much pain?"

At this, Tony hiked himself up against the railing so that he could look down at Loki's face. "Don't do that," the inventor said. "You killed yourself already too many times, Loki, it's not a good habit to get into."

"He hated me," Loki said brokenly, looking up at Tony. 

"Everybody hates the guy that can outsmart them. That's his problem. That's not your problem. The only person you need to please is yourself."

"I'll tell you what is my problem: I'm not terribly fond of me either," said Loki glumly. "This is all futile."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh wow. Is this what I'm like when I'm drunk? No wonder no one can stand me." He grabbed the back of Loki's neck with one hand and held the red eyes with his brown ones. " _You_ are _smart_ and you can _learn every day_ to be who you want to be."

He crushed his mouth to Loki's, as if Tony could force him to know his own value through sheer force of will transmitted by tongue, and as Loki responded messily but enthusiastically they both began to breathe harder, and Tony thought at least they had some endorphins to work with now.

Tony broke free for a moment to turn his face in the general direction of up, to say, "And Heimdall, you can go fuck yourself."

"He probably is, the voyeur," Loki muttered before returning to the task that now demanded both their attention.

But slowly, talking to Heimdall became a more neutral habit, a way to deal with thoughts he had that belonged to another world, to Asgard and not to Earth. 

As he sat in the workshop with armor schematics, trying to learn what he could from earth science:

"The way these repulsors are put together reminds me of the Bifrost. Heimdall, do you see what I mean? Suppose we miniaturized the gate the same way. We'd need much less metal. If there is one things these humans do well it is make things small. Everything's big on Asgard, isn't it, my bulky friend? We still need the enormous length of crystal for the bridge to draw in enough power, but I may be able to find a way around that."

As he practiced his spellwork, looking for a way to neutralize the Hulk:

"Heimdall, do you remember when Thor and I went to Alfheim, and Thor flirted with that dryad, and she turned him into a sheep?" Loki smiled at the memory. "It took me three weeks to figure out how to change him back and I had to ask you where to find some of the ingredients." He looked to the runes mixed with chemical symbols spread out in front of him. "That was child's play compared to this. Look at these diagrams! I'd bet that even you have never seen anything like them. Nobody's tried to do anything like this before. Is that so?"

And when Thor and Jane had a fight, and Loki knew neither of them would take kindly to his butting in and trying to explain the perspectives each of them were missing:

"This is a fine mess, isn't it, Heimdall?" Loki sighed. "No such thing as anniversaries on Asgard, and that's the least of it. Time is just so different here than it is there. Tony and I barely have an understanding on the subject, and Thor, the excitable stone-skulled beast that he is, will never be able to wrap his mind around how large the gap is that they have to bridge." 

He glanced up, as he tended to do when consciously addressing a comment to the gatekeeper. "To see so much and be able to do so little about it...I begin to understand you, and your frustration with things. We should not be enemies. We should have been friends."

Loki was settling in to life as an Avenger, and he was getting out of the habit of holding grudges. People's faults and weaknesses were no longer reason for anger or hatred, but simple facts to keep in mind. Some anger was too old to let go of - he would always resent Odin for favoring Thor the way he had - but despite Heimdall's suspicious attitude towards Loki over the years, the frost giant found himself understanding more, and hating less.

"Heimdall," he found himself saying one day, "What do you think of this? It's a Midgardian method for growing crystals. We would be unlikely to find another crystal big enough to carve a new rainbow bridge, but perhaps if I adapted this method, I could rebuild the one we have with a spell?"

In between working on this, he drew up plans for the more efficient gateway design inspired by repulsor technology. He was beginning to think that the Bifrost might actually not be so terribly hard to repair. Of course, Loki lived in Stark Tower, worked in the labs, and this was a place where the word "impossible" did not exist, and the word "difficult" rang like a challenge, and was interchangeable with "fun."

"Making progress on your 'bridge to nowhere' project, Springbok?" Tony asked, looking over his shoulder at the diagrams Loki was drawing up.

"It would be much more accurate to call it a 'bridge to everywhere'," Loki remarked.

"Yeah, but one end of it is always in Asgard, and why would anyone want to go there?"

Loki chuckled. "As it happens, I'm preparing to leave for Asgard soon. If they wish me to, I am ready to try my spell."

"Ground rules, no getting in fights and falling off the world this time. The Avengers rely on you to keep things interesting around here, but it's even more fun when you don't go crazy and try to kill us." He laughed. "By the way, what _did_ you leave in Steve's sock drawer that made his whole head turn red like that?"

"Oh, it was already there, interestingly enough," Loki replied. "All I had to do was _mention_ it over breakfast."

Tony sniggered. "Oh, I might have to go do some snooping myself."

"Ground rules, no getting into fights and being thrown out of the top of your own tower without your suit."

"Fine, fine," said Tony in a mock grumble. "But you'd better come back soon, just to be sure."

They kissed, a quick but forceful thing as they each reminded the other who exactly they belonged to, and Loki gathered up his diagrams and supplies.

"Do wait up for me," Loki said. "I have plans for you tonight." And he drew power from the green arc reactor he wore hanging from his neck, and disappeared.

He teleported to the broken end of the Bifrost. As he had hoped, there was no one there save Heimdall, standing and staring out into the void. He wanted no one here to see him, either as their prince Loki, who was banished and believed by many to be dead, or in the skin he currently wore, that of a Jotunn and unwelcome here.

Loki was unsure how to begin. He had been speaking to Heimdall for weeks now, but to actually have him standing there, able to reply or even attack, if he so chose, made his usually agile tongue feel thick.

"I am here only to help," he began. "If you will allow me to do so."

Heimdall turned around, and his eyes were tired and full of knowledge and years. "I would do many things to regain the use of the Bifrost. I would not forgive Prince Loki for his crimes and allow him free rein to use powerful, untested magic in Asgard."

"I will go, then," said Loki.

"Wait," Heimdall said, holding up his hand, palm out, to stop him. "I would accept help from Midnight Mystery, one of Earth's mightiest heroes and worthy of trust."

"Are we truly so different?"

"I have seen how the past drags you down. I have seen you recreate yourself into the being that the people of Midgard expect you to be. You are a shape shifter in more ways than one. To hear you speak of the power of my expectations - it made me ashamed. It made me regret how the knowledge only I had of you shaped us both."

"Then you did know?"

"Of course." Heimdall sighed, turning again to look out over the cosmos.

"Those of us with more knowledge than others believe that we know what is best past all question. And when we are wrong, we fail most spectacularly. It would have been better if I had stopped to listen, to learn of something I did not know - the contents of your mind."

"How sweet."

"Do not mistake me, we are not friends," said the gatekeeper. 

"I would not," said the Jotunn.

"But you are one of the few people who have bothered to speak to me since the Bifrost was destroyed. When they are not traveling, most forget that I exist at all."

Loki laughed. "A foolish thing to forget. One with such power as yours should not be neglected and allowed to go mad."

They shared the barest glance of understanding. 

"Your anger and mockery were even somewhat entertaining," Heimdall admitted. "But please, do not call my name when you are with that human."

Loki smirked.

Heimdall moved farther up the bridge as Loki set up his spell preparations. It was a complex business but Loki felt extremely self-satisfied when the crystal under him began to grow, rebuilding itself. He drew on the power of the green arc reactor which lay against his chest, maintaining the spell for hours, but making sure not to exhaust it too much. He needed to be able to get home.

When he stopped, the bridge was longer by five yards. That was something.

"I will return later to continue this," Loki told Heimdall. "I have pieces for a simplified gate design, and I will bring them, but the bigger pieces would be quite impractical to transport."

"I saw," said Heimdall. "I drew copies of your plans for the craftsmen here. They are already in progress."

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Where did you say you got them?"

"I see many things," said Heimdall inscrutably, and it was a phrase and expression Loki was quite familiar with.

"Of course," said Loki.

He collected his things again. "I will return, most likely, in two or three days. I will see you then."

"I will see you, regardless," Heimdall replied.

"I will not forget that," Loki promised. And he disappeared.


End file.
